


WiFi

by SilverMoon53



Series: Silver's Summer '18 Fic-a-thon [6]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cryptids, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Late night talks, Pidge | Katie Holt Swears Like a Sailor, Pidge | Katie Holt-centric, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Kidge, Platonic Relationships, god i just love their friendship it means so much to me, keith and pidge are both big time conspiracy people, she/her pronouns for pidge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 06:33:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15213275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverMoon53/pseuds/SilverMoon53
Summary: Pidge was used to late nights spent working, hours creeping by before she realizes how much time has passed. She was not used to being interrupted by Keith, asking if there is any way to make WiFi work in space.





	WiFi

**Author's Note:**

> One of these days I'm going to write a Voltron fic that doesn't center around Pidge and that day is not today

Pidge knew, in the back of her mind, that she was not the only one who spent sleepless nights in the Castle. Allura and Coran would often stay up talking, haunted by their past. Keith was known to train until he was almost too tired to stand, going harder and longer into the night when all others had gone to bed. Hunk could often be found in the kitchen at odd hours, baking away his stress and anxiety, and it was an open secret that Shiro woke many nights, still convinced he was in the hands of the Galra. Only Lance, with his rigorous skin care regimen, seemed to sleep soundly at night, but Pidge had seen the shadows under his eyes enough times to know that he just spent his restless nights tucked away in his room. 

Pidge liked to tell herself that she was different. That her nights were busy because she didn’t notice the hours slipping by, that she would be able to sleep if she just realised how late it was. She knew it was a lie, knew that she forced herself to stay up long after the others had gone to bed, searching for ways to find her family or upgrade her lion or armour. She liked to pretend she didn’t have nightmares of her family dying in front of her, of being just too late to save her father and brother. She liked to think all of this, but she knew it was a lie.

Whatever the reason, Pidge often found herself tucked away in the room she had claimed as her lab at all hours, and this night was no different. The Castle’s heating turned down during its night cycle, so Pidge had bundled herself in a pile of blankets, fingers chilled as they skittered across the keyboard in front of her. Her eyes were narrowed, trying to see past the blur of sleep that plagued them. 

With a groan, Pidge turned away from the bright screen and detangled her arms from the blankets to rub at her eyes. She let herself flop back onto the nest of pillows she had scattered around herself and sighed irritably. Her research was going nowhere. Her family remained just out of reach, no matter what she did. Pidge considered closing her eyes for a minute or two, just to see if sleep would take her dreamlessly for once. She didn’t know where to go next, and sleeping on problems usually helped her. 

A soft knock broke her from her thoughts before she could decide. For a moment, she toyed with the idea of pretending to not be there, but realised that the light from her screen would have given her away. 

“Come in,” she said, not sitting up. The door opened with a _whoosh_ and hesitant footsteps entered. “If you’re here to tell me to get some rest, Shiro, you’re a fucking hypocrite,” she added as the silence stretched out. 

“Heh. I don’t think Shiro would appreciate that language, Pidge.” 

“Oh, shit, sorry Keith.” Pidge dragged herself semi-upright. Propped up on her elbows, she looked him up and down, mildly curious about what he was doing there. “Shiro usually comes to tell me to get some rest, but he avoids sleep like the rest of us,” she explained. Keith stood by the door, eyes scanning the lab but not really looking. Pidge sighed and pulled herself into a fully sitting position, carefully tucking her fingers under her legs to warm them up. She nodded to the spot next to her. “Have a seat.”

Keith hesitated for a second before settling himself beside her with a quiet thank you. Pidge waited for him to tell her why he was there, but he said nothing as the silence stretched on. 

Pidge had found that, despite their rough start, she quite liked Keith. He didn’t sugar-coat anything, or treat her different just because she was younger. He was the only one on the team who didn’t berate her when she was blunt, and the only one who never spoke in wild and confusing metaphors or analogies. He said what needed to be said and little else, something Pidge was grateful for. 

She also found that she liked spending time in his company. Pidge had spent more than a few sleepless nights with him in the training room, learning to fight better. The pair made a surprisingly effective fighting duo, and the physical work helped clear her head. On the nights when it wasn’t enough, Keith was a good wall to bounce ideas off of, even if he didn’t understand half of the technical terms she used. 

This wasn’t even the first night he had come to her. Sometimes he just wanted the company and the two spent hours sitting without a word between them. Tonight, however, Pidge knew he had something on his mind.

“Tell me what’s up,” she told him bluntly. She had enough experience with Keith to know that dancing around the issue got nowhere and it was refreshing to be direct. Keith sighed and bit his lip in hesitation for another second.

“I was wondering if you could get WiFi to work on the Castle.”

Pidge started, her eyebrows knit together as she thought. “I… I don’t know,” she said after a few moments. “I hadn’t thought of trying.” She scrambled to remove herself from the blankets, hissing at the cold air that surged forward to engulf her. The notepad and pencil she kept nearby found their way into her hands and she started to scribble. 

“I had just assumed that Earth was too far away, not to mention that there’s no signal out here,” she explained as she scratched at the page. “But the Galra clearly have some WiFi-esque thing, as do the Lions and our Paladin suits. I’m not sure it’s possible, but it’ll be worth a shot. At the very least, we can try so that Hunk and Lance can get a message back to their families to let them know they’re safe.” Pidge paused, head to one side. “Or, as safe as they can be, fighting an intergalactic war and all that. Alive, at least. It’ll make them feel better, either way. Lance and Hunk, I mean, because the Garrison probably didn’t even tell their families we disappeared.” She trailed off, words dissolving to angry muttering about the Garrison and its horrible policy about telling families about disappearing ships. 

“What about your family?” Keith asked suddenly, breaking Pidge from her rambling. She jumped, having almost forgotten he was there, then glanced away. 

“Any attempt to contact Pidge Gunderson’s family won’t be successful because I made them all up and I’m not there to keep up the facade,” she said after a moment. “And my brother and father are out here, anyway, so it’s not like there’s anyone for me to contact.”

“What about your mom?”

“I-” Pidge stared at the paper as it blurred. She blinked hard to clear the tiredness and pointedly ignored the wet spots that splattered down when she did so. “She’s dead,” she said after a few moments. “She got hit by a car a few days after… after we heard about the Kerberos mission.” She sniffed thickly and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “That’s why I have to find my dad and brother. They’re all I have left.” 

She felt Keith’s hand hesitantly place itself on her shoulder. She silently let him comfort her for a few moments before wiping her eyes again and shrugging him off. 

“So,” Pidge mumbled. She paused to clear her throat before trying again. “Why do you want WiFi? I thought you lived alone in the desert. And you’re always going on about how ‘everyone in the universe has a family’ but you never talk about yours.”

Keith tensed beside her but Pidge kept her eyes on her sketches. If he wanted to tell her he would, and saying something wouldn’t change that. After a few moments, he heaved a sigh.

“My dad died when I was younger. About eight years ago.” He hesitated when Pidge made a sympathetic noise, but pressed on. “And I never knew my mom. Guess now I know why.” They shared a quick snort, even though it wasn’t actually funny. “But Shiro’s been my brother for a while. Not by blood, of course, but that doesn’t make him less family.” 

“So your family is either here or gone,” Pidge said as she finally looked up at him. “So why do you want WiFi again?” A wicked grin crossed her face as Keith looked away with a blush. “Got a boyfriend back on Earth?” she teased with a wiggle of her eyebrows. 

“No!” Keith said a bit too quickly to be believable. “Really, I don’t. Just,” he paused and ran a hand through his hair. “Just promise you won’t laugh.”

“I will make no such promises.”

“At least promise you won’t tell Lance?”

“That one _might_ be doable.”

“You know what? Nevermind. It’s not important.” He got up to leave, shoulders hunched. 

“Keith, wait.” Pidge smiled as he stopped, and patted the pillow beside her again. He hesitated just a second longer before turning around and sitting down. “If it’s that important to you, I won’t tell anyone. Promise.”

Keith sighed and muttered something. 

“Didn’t quite catch that.”

“It’s about a…” he trailed off again and Pidge groaned.

“Listen, I’m tired as shit and you clearly want to talk about this or you wouldn’t have come to me. You and I both know that, so just spit it out.”

“I want to check on a blog!” 

He seemed surprised that he had been able to shout it like that. He turned away, face as red as his lion and mumbled, “I want to check on a blog, okay?”

“A blog?” Pidge echoed. For her part, she was mostly able to keep her snickering in check. The idea of Keith, of all people, wanting to check a blog, of all things, was too much for her to take and she burst out laughing after a few moments. 

“Yes, a blog, okay!” Keith said defensively. “It’s a conspiracy theory and cryptids blog I started when I was at a pretty low point and needed something to distract me. And I’ll have you know we had _quite_ the decent amount of followers.” Keith broke off and looked away. “Besides,” he continued once Pidge’s laughter settled down, “I don’t want the WiFi to update it. I just want to let the other mod know I’m okay.” 

“The other mod?” Pidge sobered quickly, though kept her smile. “You mean you ran a blog with someone else?”

“Yeah, well, it was just me at the beginning. Then the Kerberos mission failed and suddenly there were a whole bunch of people interested in conspiracies and everyone wanted in. But there was one person who seemed genuinely interested. We ended up chatting a lot over the last few months and I liked to think of her as a friend.”

“And then the whole Voltron thing happened and you basically vanished overnight,” Pidge surmised. 

“Pretty much. I just don’t want her thinking I abandoned her without warning.”

“Keith, I don’t want to discourage you, and I will try to get this working, but it’s been months.”

“I know. That’s why I want to let her know I’m okay. I feel really bad about just abandoning her.”

Pidge scoffed. “To be fair, I don’t think ‘leaving the planet to fight in an inter-galactic war’ counts as abandoning.” She turned back to her notepad and hummed softly. “I’m not sure about how to get WiFi working here,” she explained as she started to flip through the pages, “but I have been working on a way to transmit messages back into our solar system, to where people might be able to find it. If you know her name, we might be able to send a message to her.”

“I don’t know her name, sorry.”

“Any idea where abouts she lived?”

“It was a conspiracy theory blog, Pidge, do you really think we gave out _any_ personal information?”

Pidge paused and looked up. “Fair enough,” she said simply. “Do you know anything about her? Other than she’s a girl.”

“No,” Keith admitted. “All I know is her screen name. That’s why I was hoping you could get WiFi working.”

“What was her screen name, then?”

“TheTruth1s0utThere, all one word and with 1 instead of ‘i’ and 0 instead of ‘o’. Like this.” He grabbed the notepad from Pidge’s hands and wrote it out. She stared at him, eyes wide, but said nothing. Her eyes flicked between his face and the screen name. “Look, we both chose weird screen names. It was kinda the point, and she was focused on space so it-” 

“That’s not-”

“You know what? Nevermind.” Keith looked away, scowling deeply. “Forget it, it’s not going to work, I-”

“What was your screename?” Pidge cut him off again, more sharply this time and with one hand clutching his arm almost hard enough to hurt. 

“It doesn’t matter, okay, Pidge?” He tried to shrug her off but she only gripped tighter.

“Tell me!” The intensity in her voice stopped him and he looked at her again. 

“It was DesertWhispers. Can I go now? Just forget I said anything.”

Pidge said nothing for a few moments and let go of his arm to cover her mouth with her hands instead. Keith looked away, arms crossed and face pulled into a tighter scowl than usual, but he didn’t get up to leave. After a few moments, Pidge spoke, voice barely above a whisper. 

“Holy shit. Holy _fucking_ shit.”

“What? What is it?” Keith looked at her, panic evident in his wide eyes. His eyebrows dropped in confusion at the sheer glee on her face. “Pidge?”

“DesertWhispers?”

“Yeah, I just told you that’s what I went by. I chose a cheesy name on purpose, okay, and-” He broke off when Pidge launched herself at him, wrapping him in as crushing a hug as she could. 

“I don’t fucking believe it,” she muttered into his chest. She pulled away, eyes shining with tears. “It’s you. It’s fucking you, how did we not know?”

“Pidge, what is going on? Can you explain-”

“I’m TheTruth1s0utThere,” she told him. “You didn’t abandon me. I was with you the whole time. Thank you.” She wiped her eyes but more tears dripped down anyway. She shook her head and pulled him into a hug again. She kept talking, voice muffled by his chest as she held him as tightly as she could. “Thank you so much. That blog was _everything_ to me back then. It kept me sane when I had nothing else to hold on to. _Thank you._ ”

Slowly, Keith returned the hug. Pidge felt his arms tighten around her until they were both hugging each other with all of their strength. 

They stayed like that for several minutes, reveling in the realisation that they had known each other and had been there for each other when they had both been so alone. Then Pidge pushed away.

“I never even thought to look for you,” she whispered, voice heavy with guilt. “I mean, I thought about the blog, but it never occured to me that you would wonder where I’d gone. I’m sorry.” Pidge looked away, suddenly feeling undeserving of Keith’s newfound warmth.

“Hey, it doesn’t matter.” Keith laid a hesitant hand on her knee. She flinched slightly, then put her hand over his, but still didn’t look up. “We found each other now. We both know the other is okay. And it’s like you said. We’re fighting an inter-galactic war. You’ve had bigger things on your mind.” 

Pidge looked up then, a watery smile on her lips. “Thank you,” she said again. “For everything.” She held his gaze for a moment then shook herself. Her smile turned to a mischievous grin as a realisation struck her. 

“What’s that look for?” Keith asked, his voice apprehensive.

“This means that we know everything we told each other.”

“Oh, no.” Keith’s face paled. 

“Oh, _yes,_ Mr ‘I’m not saying I would sleep with the Babadook but I’m certainly not saying I wouldn’t’.” Pidge laughed as Keith’s face changed colour again, this time lighting up like a Christmas tree. 

“Right,” Keith said once he managed to recomose himself. “Because I don’t have just as much on you.” Pidge narrowed her eyes.

“You wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t what, Miss ‘Here’s how these constellations combine to form a massive penis in the sky’?” 

“Hey!” Pidge laughed and aimed a punch at Keith’s arm. “You know I was on a lethal amount of energy drinks when I said that!” He blocked her easily but allowed her to tackle him into another hug. 

“Anything you have on me, I have just as bad on you,” he reminded her. 

“And if Lance finds out any of it, we’ll never hear the end of it,” she agreed.

“Truce?”

“Truce.” 

After a few minutes, Pidge pulled herself up and grabbed her notebook again. Keith watched her work, silent except for the occasional banter about things they had said on their blog. It was a comfortably companionship, and Pidge enjoyed his company even more than before.

Her family was still missing. There was still a war going on, and they would have to deal with all of the awful things that went along with that. 

And, as much as she hated to admit it, there was a possibility that Pidge would never find her family. 

But she had found someone important to her.

And for now, that was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Writeblr blog: @silverssideblog  
> Discord: cloudcover#7167


End file.
